NextBuses.Live
Support
NextBuses.Live is a full-screen live bus arrivals board for any always-on screen — a shop window, an office reception, a café, a hallway display, or a screen at home. Point it at a location, pick the nearby stops, and leave it running. This page answers the questions I hear most often and lists the ways to get in touch.
Contact
For questions about NextBuses.Live — bugs, missing stops, feedback, suggestions — email me. I read every message and reply as quickly as I can.
Please mention which region you're using and, if relevant, the stop or route you're looking at — the one-line Debug info at the bottom of Settings is perfect to paste in, so I can reproduce what you're seeing.
NextBuses.Live is run by a single person (a sole trader), so replies can be delayed at busy times — please bear with me, and feel free to send a polite follow-up if you haven't heard back within a week.
I can't change a bus timetable, dispatch a bus, or comment on why a particular bus is late or cancelled — those are decisions for the bus operators. NextBuses.Live only displays the information the operators publish.
Frequently asked questions
Is this an official service from the bus operators?
No. NextBuses.Live is an independent display built on top of the open transit data that the authorities publish: Transport for London, the Department for Transport's Bus Open Data Service (England), Transport for Ireland / the National Transport Authority, Translink / Open Data NI, Entur (Norway), Digitransit (Finland), Transpordiamet and Tallinna Transport (Estonia), Stadt Wien / Wiener Linien, and DELFI / gtfs.de (Germany). I am not affiliated with any of them. For the authoritative position, always check the operator's own app or website.
Which areas are covered?
Twenty regions: London; the eight English regions (North East, North West, Yorkshire, East Midlands, West Midlands, East Anglia, South East, South West); Ireland (the whole Republic); Belfast; Norway (the whole country); Finland (the whole country); Estonia (with live tracking in Tallinn); Wien; and five German metro areas (Berlin, Rhein-Ruhr, München, Hamburg, Frankfurt Rhein-Main). Each regional board covers every town and city in its area, so you can pick stops anywhere within it. Trams and water buses are included where the region has them.
Why do some buses show "Timetable" instead of "Live"?
A live time means a bus is actually being tracked right now; a timetable time is the scheduled time. Live tracking depends on the bus operator publishing vehicle positions. Where that data is available, the board shows corrected live times and a green "Live" pill; where it isn't (off-peak with nothing running, an operator that doesn't publish, or Belfast, which has no realtime bus feed at all), the board falls back to the timetable and shows a "Timetable" pill. It always tells you which you're looking at.
How do I set it up on a screen?
Open Settings (the gear icon), set a location with the Use current location button or by typing a postcode, tick the nearby stops you want (or use Select all shown), and press Save & display. For a kiosk, install the board as an app (each region is an installable PWA — "Install app" / "Add to Home Screen" in your browser's menu) or use the browser's full-screen mode; the board requests a screen wake-lock so the display won't sleep, and everything is remembered after a reboot.
How often does the board update?
All your stops load within a few seconds of opening the board (their first fetches are spread over a brief moment to avoid a burst). After that, each stop refreshes on a cadence that suits its data, while the minutes always tick down smoothly on the device in between:
- The live regions — about once a minute (their realtime data changes that often).
- Belfast — timetable-only, so it fetches several hours of schedule in one go and counts the times down on the device, re-fetching only every few hours (and whenever the daily timetable is rebuilt).
A stop only shows a bus once there's one due — if nothing is coming for a while (or no data is available for it yet), it stays empty until the next one approaches.
The arrivals look wrong, or a bus didn't come.
The times come straight from the operators' own feeds. If a feed is delayed, a prediction is off, or a service is cancelled, the board reflects what the feed says (in Ireland, cancellations are shown struck through). If something is consistently wrong for a stop or route, email me with the details below and I'll look into it.
I think there's a bug.
Please email support@nextbuses.live with:
- What you were doing when the problem appeared.
- The region, and the stop or route you were looking at.
- The one-line settings JSON from Settings → Debug (press Copy and paste it in) — it contains your exact configuration, so I can reproduce your board as-is.
- A screenshot, if you can.
I can't fix what I can't reproduce, so the more detail you can share, the faster I can help.
What do the paid plans add?
The board is free to use: the Free plan shows up to 4 stops, with up to 2 departures per route. Plus raises that to 16 stops and up to 4 departures per route; Pro to 64 stops and up to 8. Every paid plan starts with a 7-day free trial — cancel before it ends and you pay nothing. Subscribe from Settings → Plan & licence on your region's board; prices are shown at checkout in your region's currency, tax included. Payments are handled by Polar, our Merchant of Record.
How do licence keys work?
Subscribing gives you a licence key (find it any time on your Polar customer portal). Enter it in Settings → Plan & licence. One key activates one screen at a time, and works on any board in the area it was bought for — an England key covers London and the eight English regions, a Europe key covers the Eurozone regions, and so on. Want more screens? Buy one subscription per screen. To move a key to a new screen, just activate it there and choose Use it on this screen instead, or deactivate the old screen in the portal. Cancelling, changing plan, and updating your card all happen in the portal too.
What do you do with my data?
Nothing leaves your device beyond the requests needed to fetch arrivals — your chosen location, stops, and any keys are stored only in your browser; I don't collect personal data, don't sync your settings to a server, and don't track individual users. If you subscribe, Polar (the Merchant of Record) handles your billing details, and licence checks send your key and a random device identifier to our licence service. Full details are in the privacy policy.
Something else?
Anything not covered here — including feature requests, ideas, and general feedback — is welcome at support@nextbuses.live.
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